THE NEXT ICE AGE - NOW!

Apple farmers in
Poland facing crisis
after string of cold snaps"This is the biggest disaster we've seen
since the Second World War"

08 May 07 - "We estimate losses at more than 80 percent of
production, hitting four or even six billion zlotys (1.0-1.5 billion
euros, 1.45-2.2 billion dollars)," Miroslaw Maliszewski, president
of the Polish Association of Fruit Producers, told AFP.

"This is the biggest disaster we've seen since the Second World
War," he said.

Bozena Nosecka, a senior official at the Polish government's
Agricultural and Food Economics Institute, said the situation was
"tragic".

Nosecka said that the two cold snaps, which brought freezing
overnight temperatures on April 22-23 and May 1-3, had also hit Poland's
cherry, pear and strawberry producers.